It's been a while but I'm still standing and the roaddog is still printing

Yes, I have have been working on my roaddog printer over break.

First I caused a problem with my hot end when the nozzle became loose and the entire assembly spun around.  Upon tightening the assembly I placed the heater block in contact with the Aluminum heatsink and didn't notice this and hence spent (2) days scratching my head as to why the hot end would not heat above 150C.  Live and learn.

Next, my filament cooling fan is not cooling behind the parts.  This is evident when I print medium to large parts--you can see it in the surface texture and finish.  I will need to come up with another fan solution.

Also, I'm in the process of adding a new communication interface a raspberry PI 3 B.  With this device I will use Octo PI to print via the cloud.  Happy days, the large LCD panel problem has been resolved.  Resolved but not applied I found that the older version of the Arduino 1.62 was not working for my display.  I bumped up to 1.80 and we are now good to go.

One or two other things.  I've committed to printing the 6 foot tall Saturn V rocket and Gantry.  This is a huge undertaking in time and money but I simply must do it.  In that, I need a larger bed size printer so I'm now building the roaddog II 260mmx300mm bed.  Virtually the same build as the roaddog I except for a larger bed and I will use dual power supplies 12v for controls and hot end and 24v for the heated bed.  The bed will still be controlled by Marlin through a combination Arduino Ramps configuration and the 24v will split off using a DC SCR  12v to 24v dc isolated control. Granted this will just be on/off PID however I have faith that this will be sufficient if not I can always upgrade to a dedicated MOSFET for more granular control.

One other thing I'm now printing ABS with some success, however, I now believe that the quality of my ABS filament is in question.  Once I can afford it I will buy some quality ABS and see is that makes a difference.

That's it for now.  Pictures will follow.

New things for the roaddog on going challenge

So it looks like I burned out the ceramic heating element on my e3d hot-end extruder.  Going from the color code of the wire I have a 25watt heating element installed.  Measuring the voltage at the wire terminals at the rapps board I get 12vdc which is correct.  This should heat the hot-end nozzle to at lease 220C but I can't get past 160C and repetier then generates an error.  I have not eliminated the thermistor as the possible problem.  I went into the Marlin and re-set the thermistor to another value just to see if it would have and effect.  It did so I went from a 100k value to a 10k value and repetier read the extruder temperature as being higher than it was.  So the thermistor could still be the problem so I ordered a new one.


I also ordered a new aluminum build plate

Mercurry Aluminum Anodized Heated Build Plate Short kit for RepRap 3D Printer

and a blower for the filament

DC 12V 0.15A 2 Pin Connector Cooling Blower Fan 50mmx15mm for Laptop Black

Now printing spirographs on the new roaddog 3d printer.

I am 3d Printing on my roaddog  3d printer

I found a mechanical problem in my frame build that required that I disassemble the frame and turn around the base plate.  The Y-belt was rubbing.  It took 2 hours take it apart and put it back together correctly.  Next, I started new Marlin program since the one I had was an older version.  3 hours.  Next I setup my extruder hotend and extruded some purple PLA.  The hotend works great.  220C quick!  The PID needs to be run the bed takes forever to heat up.  Also, I solved the x-axis end stop problem.  See the attached picture.



Lots of little things to do calibrations, (get the display to work--2 hours on that).

Yesterday was a long day with the printer.  I arrived at the lab at 10:00am and started working on the printer.  First I took the latest Marlin program I had already modified for the PIII, compiled it and uploaded it to the Arduino.  I open repetier host and tried to heat the bed.  No luck, however, all the lights on the Arduino were functioning and the RAMPS board didn't have any issues.  Also, I was able to heat the extruder and get feedback temperature.  Something else was wrong.  Also, I was not able to move any of the stepper motors.  The Y-stepper had some chatter.  After hours of troubleshooting, I found that the Arduino was not plugged into the RAMPS properly.  Once I made that change everything started working as predicted.  Getting there was a trial of fire that also required a pound of flesh!

Next, the wires on all the stepper motors were sideways.  So I had to repopulate all of the connector housings.

So I was able to setup the z-axis and stops the x-axis and I'm in the process of setting up the y-axis.  It turns out that need to print a new motor bracket.  I left the lab at 11:30pm

Programming the Arduino for my printer and for the school printer purple rain.  and I got the stepper motors to move on the purple rain printer.

I did not have a chance to work on my printer.  I did work on my spirograph model this weekend and plan to print something to show in class on Tuesday.


Without the power attached.
Happy day!